Talk:Chronology
Chronology issues Having just watched the first BW episodes on DVD, we have to assume Steve's first encounter with Wrona took place months before Steve went to Ojai (since 7 months are said to elapse between that and Jaime's first mission). Fortunately there's nothing in the episode that suggests Steve's "leave of absence" in Ojai occurred immediately after the first Wrona encounter. I'm also puzzled by the dates that suggest high school senior Steve Austin took up romantically with 9-year-old Jaime. I see no one wants to touch the fact that when Steve was in Third Grade Jaime played a trick on him, which must have happened when she was still in the cradle... 13:23, October 21, 2010 (UTC) :I would assume the most likely explaination for the passage of time would be the length of time for the creation of Jaime's Bionics, her re-habilitation, and re-training. Steve's process took almost a year... but then he was a prototype. But we have to assume that she had to be measure for the " fitting" , or compatability of the limbs, and I am quite sure Rudy didn't have "ready to wear stuff" ready. Since the doctor at the Ojai hospital was concerned about her surviving in that condition for very long, we should also assume she was sedated during that period of development... possibly the same electrosleep process Steve was put under. :Since Oscar tells him the Secretary wants to give him a citation for getting the plate at the time Steve is en route to Ojai.. the time could not possibly have been between the mission, and buying the ranch. There is also a possibility that Steve and Jaime's courtship (shown in flashes, not real time) prior to the skydiving accident took up to a month or so, since Oscar is shown to be impatiently waiting for Steve to return to work, but I doubt it. It's more likely the assimilation period for the Bionics. :As for the infamous third grade food prank, I was thinking the same thing just yesterday. Yeah, that's ( along with the question of her funeral) is a major continuity hole, I agree. :Bionicteddibear 22:11, October 21, 2010 (UTC) ::In dialog Steve mentions that she was a freshman when he was a senior in HS. This contradicts several clear statements about Jaime's age elsewhere. The discussion itself is the best reconciliation we can hope for. ::I can confirm the electrosleep for Jaime: in her death scene, Rudy asks: "What's the line voltage?" His assistant replies: "It's off. If she could be conscious, she would be." ::Don't forget to indent your posts by placing a colon (:) at the beginning of each paragraph; each successive post should be indented further (::, :::, etc) to allow for the reader's eye to catch the difference.--Major Sloan 19:34, October 22, 2010 (UTC) :::The Chronology will become a pet project of mine shortly. It has suffered mainly from approach and format issues. Moving forward, know that it will be modeled after the Star Trek Chronology as published by the Okudas. So any further edits should bear that in mind. — Paul (talk) 00:11, October 26, 2010 (UTC) ::::Did that ever happen? As per my edit of "The Bionic Woman (Part II)", the 7 month gap shouldn't push back the later events, which have hard dates established; the prologue should rather be in 1974, with Steve and Jaime arriving at Joseph Wrona's estate on March 5th, 1975, three days before Wrona's charity tournament on the 8th. Jaime's telegram dated March 1st is seen onscreen establishing their arrival date; the tournament is on the 8th per Wrona's dialog. Production order? While the production order at the end of Season Two is often cited to give Richard Anderson's narration at the head of "The Return of the Bionic Woman" some cover, are we prepared to commit to production order as the basis of the internal, fictional chronology? Do we even possess production dates for material beyond the end of Season Two?-Major Sloan 20:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC) :Air dates should drive this chronology not production order. Every TV series chronology that I've ever checked, fandom or official, follows air dates. If there is something within the episodes that warrants a "shuffle," then we might make an exception. To manipulate the timeline so that Steve mourns Jaime right on through to Return, without any other romantic affections, is appealing yes, but ultimately false; it's just not what the world saw after Bionic Woman. And we must account for it. As Oscar would say, "we can't allow emotions to get in the way." As for the obligatory "last on the Six Million Dollar Man...," it is what it is: a recap, a reminder, a standard practice when connecting two storylines with gaps between them. It survives even today in shows like Alias and Medium. — Paul (talk) 19:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC) ::As noted in The Bionic Book, ABC re-ran the original BW two-parter in the weeks immediately preceding the debut of The Return of the Bionic Woman, giving viewers an opportunity to reconnect with her character and the events leading to her demise. So technically, Oscar did not err when he used the word "last," which, in all likelihood, simply referred to "last week."--Valor 20:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC) There is no such thing as a single chronology of these series Personally, think this article, in its current form, should be wholly scrapped. Too much of it is speculative to be of use to the average reader. It's stating many things as "fact" which are really just editorial opinion. Hell, the whole thing largely begins by saying that the birthdate on Steve's ID is a "production error" that we must discount. The entire article then flows from one editor's decision to ignore this piece of hard visual evidence because it is inconvenient to his interpretation of events. To me, this article should not try to positively assert that there is a "definitive' chronology, but should explore the many reasons why a definite timeline of the events of the show cannot be definitively established. You can't pick and choose what you want to include. But if you must pick and choose just to start the chronology, then that's a big sign that it's going to be impossible to make the thing work. Let's look at just one thing the article currently fails to consider: "Lost Love". Inexplicably this significant relationship in Steve's life is entirely unmentioned here, ostensibly because that episode would tear a hole right through this timeline the size of Barbara Thathcher. What we learn through dialogue is that Steve and Margaret parted seven years prior to "Love" because he had just entered astronaut training. If we assume that "Love" happened in 1975 (as this article does), then that would mean Steve began astronaut training in 1968 — not the 1965 claimed by the article. Would an astronaut who entered training in 1968 realistically been up for a moon shot in 1972? Probably not. However, it should be pointed out that "Love"'s time frame makes some sense if he was born in 1942. That woulc make him a freshman in college in ~1960; graduated by ~1964; out of USA duty in Vietnam on medical grounds by ~1965; a pilot in the USAF from ~1965-1968; and backup pilot of Apollo 17 by 1972. This works better, it seems to me, than saying he started NASA duty in 1965, at which time he would've been just 21-22, without any real piloting experience at all. Just to pick another example, Harry Anderson could not have driven Steve to school, as A Thing of the Past established, because he moved to Ojai only 15 years prior to the events of that episode. At this time, Steve had already begun his college career. Thing is, SMDM and TBW had only prototypical continuity. Yes, they attempted, and often succeeded, at creating a narrative which stretched across two series. The use of the two series to tell multi-part stories bound them together in a continuity more tightly than many related series before or since. But they aren't like shows made today, where writers really sweat out the details. It was assumed that viewers would watch each episode once, and promptly forget the details. Both shows ended before the advent of home video recording. It's amazing that they even made the efforts they did at some kind of continuity. This article should go in depth highlighting what the implications of various declarations heard throughout the series' runs are upon the viewer's perception of a "time line". It should not make an effort to establish a single, unified chronology. This particular fiction simply will not bear it. Articles need leads to orient the reader's attention and organize the information. If you think about what the most honest, least controvertial lead to an article about the chronology of the Bionic series would be, it would probably run along the lines of : ::A chronology of the events of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman is difficult to establish with any certainty. The many instances of flatly contradicting information about the pasts of Steve Austin, Jaime Sommers, Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells — along with a general failure to explicitly establish the "current" date of each episode — make it impossible to speak of a single timeline which covers all episodes. Indeed, the fact that these series sometimes broadcast their episodes out of production order sometimes made for unintentional continuity problems. Any attempt to understand the continuity of the bionic series must be prefaced with the knowledge that they were produced before the advent of home video, and not made to withstand the scrutiny of multiple viewings. From there, the article could give various examples of the major examples of continuity conflicts within the series. CzechOut ☎ | 00:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC) :We seem to agree, for the most part, on how to approach the timeline. See Cite VS Change below. — Paul (talk) 14:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC) ::A quibble- Sony introduced the Betamax in 1976, JVC rolled out VHS in 77. The integrated monitor/VCR of the first Betamax system is used for playback of Oscar's final order in Kill Oscar, despite the closeup of the tape being of the 3/4" U-matic variety. Certainly though, as a market reality Home Video had yet to "arrive." --Major Sloan 01:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC) Hi from Bionicri Hi everybody im bionicri i rad the chronology and I tried to give my little help. 1) as lot of as just know, Jaime Sommers was born in 1949, so I moved on 1966 her graduation. I have only a question what about the corret date of death of Jaime's parents? I tried to help bionicwiki if i hade done sometingh of wrong please tell me because my purpose is only to give a contribute and not to hurt someone. bye, Bionicri. :Hi Bionicri, welcome to the wiki. Please check your talk page for an official Bionic Wiki welcome. Also, please check out our for quick reference on how to format your talk contributions. As for your question: right now we are adding content as it is reflected in the episodes. Please read the Cite vs Change discussion below for a detailed explanation on how we are approaching inconsistencies. Suffice it to say that the "correct" date of death for Jaime's parents is the same as shown in the episodes. — Paul (talk) 20:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC) Documenting With Episode Citations, Not Airdates I think that some of the events in the chronology should be cited with the episodes in which the detail came from. I know it would be next to impossible to document each event, and would also cause too much clutter to include a citation for each entry. However, one problem I see is linking an episode with the date it originally aired. Most episodes cover a span of days, weeks, or even months. - Well, I thought I'd throw my two cents in, and that's as close as I want to get to this chronological quagmire. Karen (talk) 08:08, 15 April 2007 (UTC) :The Bionic Woman parts 1 and 2 spans atleast two months and Darkside of the Moon spans a month as well.--Agent X 09:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC) ::Absolutely! Excellent suggestion, Karen. In fact, there exists a chronology model that addresses both your concerns as well as the one I speak of in the previous thread about citing errors instead of "correcting" them. That model is the one published in the Star Trek Chronology. Episode order is maintained but does not associate the RL (Real Life) airdate. Significant events are cited by the episodes from which they are derived. And they use editor notes to cite problems in the timeline. When I get home, I'll scan a few select pages from the book and upload them for review. You don't need to know anything about Star Trek, it's the literary model for structure and design we're interested in. If everyone agrees, we can then adopt it (seeing as how we were pretty much moving in that direction anyway). — Paul (talk) 21:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC) Cite VS Change (formerly "Chronology" transplanted here from Current Events) There is a big misconception with the timeline. Don't get me wrong, I certainly understand the desire to make things fit logically, but remember: we are not here to create the timeline; our job is to document it. Think of us as inter-dimensional time-travelers! We can observe the history of the Bionic universe, but we cannot change it. If we observe conflicting facts (like date discrepancies), we can alert the reader to the inconsistency by adding an editor's note (e.g. "this date contradicts an earlier date given in episode..."). We may also offer theories for possible resolutions ("perhaps the date is part of Jaime's cover..."). Speculation and conjecture is permitted, however, we must leave it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions. Under no circumstances should we be changing dates or altering images to correct presumed production errors. I have more notes, but I'll address them over on the Chronology page. — Paul (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC) :Perhaps altering images was going a bit too far on my behalf but I still feel compelled to fix the dates on the Chronology to make more sense despite the blunders of an idiotic production designer and/or writer. I asked many times in the talk section if Jaime's parents' death was established through dialogue or just the tombstone. I never got a confirmation so I push their death date back. If something is established through dialogue I will grudgenly accept it no matter how inconsistant it will be to the time line. --Agent X 06:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC) ::It doesn't matter if the date was established through dialogue or visuals, if it's in the episode then we must treat it as canon -- despite how we may feel personally. Integrity and accuracy is the foundation upon which any reputable information resource is built. This wiki is no different. Our first duty is to the facts as they are presented in the episodes. If one of those facts is ambiguous, then we acknowledge its ambiguity, we can offer reasonable suggestions to clarify it, but we don't change it. If there are conflicting facts from different episodes, we cite them, we can offer opinion as to which makes the most sense, but we don't choose one over the other. If the date of an event doesn't fit logically into our timeline, then we can suggest alternatives that do, but we cannot change the date. — Paul (talk) 08:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC) :::But how could Jaime be only 16 years of age when her parents' died in 1966 and at the same time be Steve's date/highschool sweet heart in 1959? I can not believe that Steve Austin spent his highschool years combing the local grammar schools picking up girls that are in the 3rd grade. I think it would more logical to rewrite the timeline so it makes sense (pushing Jaime's DOB back a few years and her parents' death) and then add the editor's note on blunders from the writers and production designer. :::*Is it right to write that 17 year old Steve Austin took 9 year old Jaime Sommers to his senior dance and then kisses her for the first time? Ewwwwww! I'm sure Jaime was an adorable 9 year old kid but I have a hard time accepting that she was making out with high school boys while in the 3rd grade. I'm not ranting or anything like that. I'm just making suggestions. :::*Are we also also going to embrace the 3rd season altered timeline where Steve doesn't exist and it's Jaime and Max being the only ones that are bionic? Those were rules set fourth by the idiot network execs at NBC. I wasn't around during that time but I could imagine what a slap in the face that must have been for fans. Instead I thought it would be more creative and fun to disregard the network's law and instead fix/rebuild the blunder that was season 3. :::*For example SMDM Dark Side of the Moon aired a week or two after Fembots in Las Vegas so I wrapped the events of DSOTM around FILV. IMO this explains Steve's absence during these events because he was on the moon and also explains why Steve wasn't on Carl Franklin's list of demands when he wanted Jaime, Oscar and Rudy to turn themselves in. Perhaps Carl knew about Steve's on the moon and had plans to deal with him at a later date or perhaps he was going to use the Directed Energy Weapon to destroy Steve's space shuttle enroute back to Earth. It makes more sense than pretending that Kill Oscar (Part II) doesn't exist. :::I'm just throwing around suggestions.--Agent X 20:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC) ::::Mark, these are all are perfect examples of inconsistencies, discrepancies, and logic problems within the Bionic shows. But no, you cannot change them. You can, however, add an unbiased "Editor's Note" explaining to the reader that a conflict exists and why. You may then suggest ways in which the problem would make better sense. Think of the editor's note the same way you would cite a nitpick. Ultimately, the reader must decide what they want to believe. — Paul (talk) 11:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC) :::::Okay Paul, it seems that Oscar has two different established birthdates. How do we go about that? --Agent X 07:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC) ::::::We treat the first birth date with a standard citation that includes the episode where we got the info and how it was revealed (text seen on a record, through a conversation, etc.) For the next date, we do the same thing -- only this time we add an Editor's Note and explain to the reader that this date is different from the one given in a previous episode. You may go further and suggest to the reader which date makes better sense and why. — Paul (talk) 22:07, 15 April 2007 (UTC) Date formats Can we shorten the dates to the MMM format for uniformity? (Example: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr) This page is getting quite busy (but that's a good thing). What do you think? — User:FuzzyLogic (talk) :Sure FuzzyLogic, if you can improve it, go right ahead. --Agent X 18:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC) corrected tombstone dates Please cite the source of this info. It is quite interesting! — User:FuzzyLogic (talk) 03:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC) :If you're asking about their ages at the time of the New Year's Eve party (which was when they had their first kiss), it came from the original "Bionic Woman", part 1, on SMDM. Jaime and Steve talked about his Senior class NYE party, and she stated she was a freshman, meaning she was 14 or 15 and he was 17 or 18 when they had their first 'real' kiss. The mentioned tombstone with the date that seems to mess with all previous dates was pictured in "Jaime's Mother".--Bionic4ever 07:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC) ::Hi, FuzzyLogic, the corrected Tombstone pic that I submitted was a manipulation job that I did using photoshop. All I did was cut/copy and pasted a another "1" from the tombstone and covered the "6" with it. Actually it was a rush job and I have to go back and fix it because it looks like I spaced the "1" a tad bit too far from the "6". --Agent X 18:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC) Chrono Questions Paul, I hope you didn't mind me taking the liberty of starting this chronology. For anyone else that is reading this, feel free to join in the discussion because I am wracking my brains trying to properly connect this fictional timeline and to have it make sense but the writers on both shows were so sloppy. *As far as I can research, Steve was born in 1942 and Jaime was born in 1949. That was easy to find except for one major problem. There's a 7 year age difference between Steve and Jaime. How the hell could they have been highschool sweethearts with an age gap like that ? Jaime was only 10 years old when Steve was 17 in highschool. So I then tried a 180 and assumed that perhaps it was Jaime that was in highschool while her and Steve were dating. Yeah I know it's a bit uncommon for guys in their early to mid 20s to date high school teens but it does happen and it is legal with the minor's parents' permission (Helen and Jim Elgin were Jaime's guardian at the time). So why not? *There lies another problem. There's Michael Austin and Steve's first marriage to Karen that the writers for the reunion movies just pulled out of their ass from nowhere. If I were to set the events of Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman in 1987, it will open up another can of worms. Michael Austin is about 21 years of age and I can't make him any younger because he was drinking at a bar and I assume that the US Air Force do NOT allow solo flights to anyone with less than 3 or 4 years in the military. If I were to set Michael birth date to 1966, that would be the same year that Jaime's parents were killed. I just can't imagine Steve being briefly married and having a kid and then go dating a teeny bopper Jaime Sommers after the divorce. Were there any dialogue in the TV reunion movies that established the year that they were set in ? If not, I may have to set the events of "Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman" to 1989 or 1990. *Then there's Max. If I remember correctly Rudy stated that Max was the prototype before Steve and Jaime. Okay it makes sense to have a prototype but it causes other problems in the timeline. After watching the pilot movie, it seems highly unlikely that Rudy ever experimented with a bionic prototype before Steve's accident but not all together impossible. The only question is where did Rudy get the funding to rebuild Max? Was it ever established that the OSI funded Max during the 3rd season of the Bionic Woman? If so that's another contradiction considering that Rudy was unaware of the OSI's existence until he met Oliver Spencer after Steve's accident. Any Input would be appreciated. --Agent X 23:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC) :Mark, the wiki is all about YOU taking the liberty. That's why we're here. And you beat me to the punch by creating a chronology. Excellent! There's also some timeline stuff in the files section of the Yahoo!Group that you may want to incorporate. I have not read all of your notes here in the Talk page (as I'm out the door), but I will do so when I get back and give you my input. — Paul (talk) 23:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC) ::In the original "Bionic Woman" episode on SMDM, Jaime and Steve talked about Steve's Senior class New Year's Eve party, saying that he took her as his date, and she was a Freshman. In "Welcome Home, Jaime", Steve tells her about his first day in the third grade, when she dared him to eat one of everything the cafeteria. So they are only 3 - 4 years apart in age, unless Steve was held back a grade or two.--Bionic4ever 12:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC) :::The only way I've seen to make their ages correspond to Steve's stated birthday is to change the year of James & Ann Sommers' deaths, the way someone did on the Fan Network. It doesn't match the tombstone shown on "Jaime's Mother", but makes all the other various ages, dates and statements work.--Bionic4ever 06:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC) ::::That tombstone is one of the biggest production blunders in the history of both series. I was leaning on pushing Jaime's birth date back a few years but that would set her age of being too old to need Helen and Jim as legal guardians in 1966. I decided to push Steve's birth date to 1945. The Japanese surrendered on Sept,1945 during World War II and that's as far ahead I can push Steve's year of birth and Carl's death. Still it contradicts that close up shot of Steve's driver's licence in The Ghostly Teletype, perhaps we'll assume that Steve had his ID altered while on assignment. --Agent X 01:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC) :::::It all works now, except that pesky driver's license. (But I like your thought on that, too.) They made it impossible to have every single date fall into line, but you've done a great job fitting it all together. Your chronology looks wonderful! Love the picture of young Lee.--Bionic4ever 08:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC) ::::::Thanks for the feedback ;) Now I stumbled upon a few new problems. ::::::*In the other timelime at the Bionic Fans Group at Yahoo, it metions that Steve was flying during the Cuban Missle Crisis. That's a problem because Steve was only 17 years old at the time. I need more information about what episode established Steve's involvment. ::::::*There's the backstory of Dr. Franklin's and Rudy's rivalry as well as his rivalry with Oscar. Oliver Spencer was the head of the OSI when Franklin's job was terminated. However that's not too big of a problem. Oscar could have been Franklin's superior while Spencer being Oscar's superior. Oscar could have been promoted and appointed Head of the OSI after Spencer's departure. :::::::The problem is the pilot movie for the Six Million Dollar Man, which is set in 1972 (2 years after Franklin was fired from the OSI), Rudy meets Oliver Spencer for the first time. Rudy was unaware of the OSI's exsistence prior to these events so how did he and Franklin have a rivalry ? --Agent X 09:40, 24 February 2007 (UTC) ::::::::Since you pushed back Steve and Jaime's birthdates, the date of his Senior Class New Years eve party should change, as well. Jaime would've been 14, not 11. (I love the author's note about tombstone, btw!) :::::::::You're probably about to not like me very much. I just checked at the beginning of "Welcome Home Jaime", and she was 27 when she became bionic. If we put that in 1976, the original "Jaime's Mother" tombstone works, but nothing else does. Probably best to leave things the way they are, since everything else has fallen into place so nicely. Just wanted to add this little sidenote. --Bionic4ever 07:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC) ::::::::::I noticed the age thing to during the opening credits but I simply chose to ignore it. Who ever designed it was obviously basing Jaime's age on Lindsay Wagner's age at the time. --Agent X 18:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC) :::::::::::The Chronology is looking great! Kudos! Question for you: are you sure Jaime's father was an OSI operative? In "Jaime's Mother", Oscar says 'They worked for the University; they were college professors, but your mother was also....."--Bionic4ever 08:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)